


until i come home

by adrianicsea



Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Billy and Frank Get Closure, Fix-It, Gen, M/M, The Punisher Season 2 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 01:09:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17478431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adrianicsea/pseuds/adrianicsea
Summary: AU, fix-it for episode 2x13 of The Punisher. Frank and Billy get to properly say their goodbyes.





	until i come home

**Author's Note:**

> I really didn't mean to write this, but I JUST finished season 2 of the Punisher, and one of my biggest complaints in a long litany of complaints about the season is how awful and unsatisfying Frank and Billy's final scene together was. This is my attempt at giving them a chance at a more fitting goodbye.

            “Frankie boy?”

            Frank flinched at the nickname despite himself. As he stood above Billy and stared down at him, Billy gave him a weak smile and coughed, a few more rivulets of blood flowing down his chin. Frank forced himself not to move.

            “You look like shit,” Billy observed. Seemingly of its own accord, Frank’s mouth twisted into the ghost of a smile as he stared into Billy’s eyes. Even on his deathbed, even after everything… Frank could still see the Billy he’d known in those big eyes, dark and bright all at once. He could still see the Billy he’d loved.

            Frank still didn’t say anything, but he lowered his gun. As Billy watched him, his chest heaving, Frank came over to the wall beside Billy and slid down it to sit next to him.

            “Shoulda known it’d be you,” Billy said. Frank turned to look at him, and Billy gave him a weak, laconic grin. “It was always gonna be you.”

            “Yeah,” Frank said. He sniffed in a vain attempt to clear the blood from his nose and looked down to study the garden of roses and violets blooming across his knuckles. “Yeah, Bill, it was always gonna be me.”

            “I like that,” Billy said. Frank grunted in response, and then Billy’s head lolled, landing on his shoulder. “S’poetic, don’tcha think?”

            Frank shrugged, and when the motion nearly toppled Billy over, he reached out one arm on reflex to steady him.

            “You always were a sap for that shit.”

            Billy shrugged and coughed again. Frank felt the mist of blood spray across his neck.

            “Ours is not to reason why, Frankie boy,” Billy said. Frank looked back at him in surprise.

            “…Yeah. Ours is but to do or die.” Frank was quiet for a moment, and then he asked, “You remember that?”

            Billy nodded, but then his eyes went foggy, and he shook his head. Frank couldn’t help studying his scars.

            “I wish I could remember you,” Billy confessed. “Remember us.”

            “Yeah,” Frank answered. He began gingerly rubbing Billy’s shoulder with his thumb. “Me too.”

            “Yeah?” Some of the light came back into Billy’s eyes as he rested on Frank’s shoulder, staring up at him.

            “Then I could just kill you and be done with it.”

            Billy nodded. He tried to move closer to Frank, but the exertion only made him cry out in pain. Frank shushed him and pulled him close instead.

            “Frank?”

            “Hmm?”

            “I-I know…” Billy was taken by a coughing fit, and as he held him and stared down at him, Frank began to wonder if he’d ever get to hear what Billy knew. But then Billy’s eyes landed on his again, and miraculously, Billy recovered.

            “I know I did somethin’ real bad to you,” Billy said. “I know…” He closed his eyes and grimaced, choking back tears. “I know I deserve this.”

            Frank nodded, but he didn’t say anything else. He only held Billy tighter.

            “But I know—or I think I know—” Billy groaned and tensed up, clawing at his stomach. He took a few rattling breaths and opened his eyes again before he continued. “—I know that I loved you. I know you were good to me. And whatever I did, why ever I did it… I regret it now.”

            “Bill—”

            As Frank watched, the tears fell like dewdrops from Billy’s eyes. Somehow, Billy forced himself to smile.

            “I love you,” Billy said again. “And I was a goddamned idiot for ever throwing this away.”

            Billy raised one hand, shaking and clammy, and pressed it to Frank’s cheek. Frank closed his eyes and leaned into the touch, even as it aggravated all the cuts and bruises he had there. For a moment, Billy’s hand reminded Frank of Maria’s, and he raised a hand of his own to cover Billy’s.

            “Tell ‘em I miss ‘em,” Frank whispered.

            “I will.”

            Frank opened his eyes to look back at Billy. Billy’s eyes were beginning to lose focus and glaze over, and Frank felt the hand beneath his begin to go slack.

            “Hey, Bill?”

            “Yeah?”

            Frank swallowed back a sob that he hadn’t realized was there.

            “… You look after ‘em ‘til I get home.”

            Billy’s eyes searched Frank’s, and he managed one last nod.

            “Frank…”

            Billy’s head collapsed against Frank’s shoulder the way it had back in Kandahar, when they had stayed up so late talking that Billy fell asleep on him. Frank didn’t move, too afraid to wake him.


End file.
